Siemens Water Technologies has established its mobile water treatment solutions in the Middle East with its first installation outside North America. Siemens will supply the system to Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia. The 50-m3/hr system uses media filtration followed by reverse osmosis to treat and purify groundwater for use as drinking water.

The mobile water treatment units began operation on June 15, 2008, and will be on site for about three years. Unlike other treatment systems, which require the investment of capital expense, manufacturing time and installation, the containerized mobile water systems provide numerous advantages such as rapid response for emergency or unplanned maintenance, minimal field construction costs and the flexibility to upgrade or change a treatment process if source water chemistry changes.

The Siemens mobile water system at Saudi Aramco will supply 50 m3/hr of treated water to supplement an existing drinking water supply during construction of a new permanent system. The company selected a mobile unit instead of a permanent treatment system, because the fully integrated, containerized system can be installed quickly with minimal construction time. By using the Siemens water treatment system, Aramco has improved the quality and quantity of available drinking water from the existing wells.

“The protection of this vital resource is an important responsibility and one of Saudi Aramco’s highest priorities,” said Mazen Snobar, community services executive director at Saudi Aramco. “We are greatly honored to work with Siemens Water Technologies, a leader in mobile water systems.”

Unlike the systems in North America, which are built inside trailers on wheels, expansion of the mobile treatment concept into Saudi Arabia involved designing treatment systems to be built in international-standard ISO containers. All of the necessary interconnecting piping, power distribution and instrumentation are complete within the container, including PLC controls for fully automatic operations. Chemical feed systems are also integrated in the container when required. This configuration allows Siemens to adapt fully integrated treatment systems into transportable containers built to withstand rigorous use and transportation. Once on site, a single-point connection for water inlet and outlet and a single-point connection for the power supply are all that is required.